Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I went on a solo 9-mile long run, taking a route I sketched out on Gmap-Pedometer.com, but had never actually ran before. It was a tough, hilly route, but I thought I'd get out and see the sights.

Like the city's Industrial Park. About 2 miles of the run was through our mostly deserted and kind of spooky Industrial Park. A few businesses call it home and all, but I didn't see anyone at all for about a mile and a half, and didn't hear any noise except my own feet and an occasional bird. The road is long and straight -- if someone decided to chase me for some reason, there'd be nowhere to go. These are the things I think about on the run. Also, see that thing that looks like a mountain in the background? That's a landfill.

I ran south along North Main Street, which was much pleasanter.

Then I spotted this thing in someone's front yard. It's a star shape made out of sticks and twine, and the dog from "Family Guy" seems to be hanged from the center. What is this, some Wiccan ritualistic sacrifice? The rest of the house looked a shambles, with dirty windows and peeling paint and dead bushes, so quite frankly I ran the hell away from there.

On my way home, I cut through a park by our house. I've been thinking about hiding a geocache somewhere in there (my first hide), so I decided to scout for places that might be safe, interesting places to share with people. Instead I came across this: it's some sort of abandoned building inside the park. I've seen it there a million times, because I've walked through this park more times than I can count, but I never actually went up to this building before. From the outside and front, it looks like some kind of shack. Behind it, the wood has rotted away and you can peek through to see the interior. We've got what looks like an old sofa, chair, oven and stove, possibly the remains of a bureau. There were several rooms in here I could see into, all full of trash and rotted furniture. I also got the hell away from here ASAP, because there's a definite willies vibe coming from there. Also, I didn't know if anybody -- or anything -- was living in it. It's the kind of place you can picture some monster crawling out of and dragging you inside to make a meal of you. It probably didn't help that I was listening to Stephen King's It on my iPod at the time.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

We went on an 8-mile run from our city across the river and into the neighboring town. It used to be fairly easy to get to, and we'd run this route fairly frequently. But since the winter there's been heavy snow and construction so the route has been kind of unsafe. Now it's opened up again. Nice!

Oh yeah -- this decrepit sign is on the way. It's been there for as long as either of us can remember, but they haven't actually bottled Coke in this building for years.

On Sunday, Nik & I ran the (long named) Officer Thomas Giunta Memorial 5K Road Race. It's the only road race in Fall River, and it starts only a mile from our house, so we decided to run it.

Since it was so close we decided to walk down there, pick up our T-shirts, run home to drop them off, run back to the start, run the race, then run back home afterward. Got all that? This is me after 2 of those miles.

This a city that loves its fatty food. We have one of the highest rates of diabetes in the state. True to form, the race served Portuguese malassadas as fuel before the race. These are chunks of sweet dough deep-fried in oil and coated with sugar. Normally they're much larger, but because this is a day for exercise they're cut into more reasonable fist-size nuggets. So you know, this isn't how you should carbo-load.

More than 1,100 people ran the race, all of them crammed into one narrow intersection near downtown. We've got people from 5:30 minute-milers to walkers and everyone in between -- and no pace corrals. And they don't move cars off the street. And there are only two port-a-potties a quarter-mile from the start. So the first half-mile is like the running of the bulls and everyone's the bull, except you're hip-checking somebody who desperately needs to piss and flinging him into a 1997 Ford Probe.

We did pretty well on the race, considering how crowded the first half-mile is. Nik decided to run with me and make it a fun run. And my mom ran/walked it with some friends from work. It's not the most organized race I've ever run, but it's the people who make it great.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Stanley is fascinated by leaves in puddles of water. He spent about three minutes looking at this one, while we were trying to go for a 5-miler. It disrupts the whole flow of the run, but he enjoys it.

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What is 4 Feet Running?

4 Feet Running is a podcast and blog featuring Nik and Dan! She's a marathon runner training for her 7th. He's a beginning runner who finished the C25K program and just ran his fourth half-marathon. Listen to their podcast archive as they recorded themselves on short runs somewhere in New England (mostly), talking about their training, playing some music, and having a few laughs – or keep up with them as they blog about their latest adventures.